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Sunday, June 12, 2016

Midway through
this cleanse, I must admit that I find the lack of ANY different results a bit
frustrating. I feel exactly the same as I did before I started it, with the
exception of a severely pinched nerve in my neck that is a new thing (and it
has nothing to do with the cleanse).

And what
this feeling of frustration is telling me is that, although I told myself when
I began that I was doing it without an agenda, clearly I did (do) have an
agenda.

I want to
feel better.

It’s a simple
fact that as of right now, two weeks in, I don’t feel any better or any worse.
And I am resisting that “simple fact” because of how difficult this is. I mean,
really, you would think that if I’m going to put this amount of work into something
like this, the least that God could do for me is show me some dang positive
results, right?! Sheesh! (LOL – I’m being facetious, although there is a grain
of truth here, too, and this has me recognizing that I’ve got strings attached,
which I promised myself I wouldn’t do.)

I find
myself glad that I decided to make it a 30-day cleanse rather than a seven- or
ten-day cleanse, because NOW I have the opportunity to persevere. To NOT give
up. To be AWARE of things [like the hidden agenda that I’m just now discovering]
cropping up that I would not have otherwise recognized. If I had made it a
shorter process, it would have already ended, and my attitude at the end would
have been, “What a waste of time. All that work and nothing to show for it.”
and I would have moved right back into old, unhealthy, unconscious habits.

So I will
continue on, and as I do so I will deliberately cultivate a choice for
unconditional acceptance. Acceptance of all of it, exactly as it is. Non-resistance,
non-attachment, and complete and unconditional acceptance of what-is, is my
choice for the week. In the words of Bill Harris, this week I choose to “let
whatever happens be okay.”

Neck/shoulder/arm
pain? It is what it is, and if I struggle against it I only add emotional
suffering to the physical suffering. ZERO weight loss? If I struggle against
this fact, I will create my own emotional suffering. Still feeling generally
unwell? Again, if I struggle against the circumstance, my experience will be
one of suffering. This idea applies to every single aspect of my life situation.
Relationship issues. Work issues. Vehicle issues. Financial issues. Pet issues.
All of it.

If I can
walk through it all with a feeling of complete acceptance – as if I chose every
bit of it on purpose (and I believe that at the spiritual level, I did) – then I
get to choose how I handle every single step along the way.

Whereas if I
walk through it resisting every step
along the way, choosing to feel like a victim
of it all, I will have a very different experience, won’t I? As long as I
struggle against it, I am powerless
in my experience of it.

When I
choose to accept all of it exactly as it is FIRST [beginning, if need be, with accepting the feeling of non-acceptance,
which is our “normal” human reaction when something happens that we don’t like],
only from there, only if I stand centered in complete acceptance, can I
deliberately choose the experience that I WANT to have.

Acceptance…
deliberate, unconditional acceptance is, I believe, the quickest and most empowering way to bring ourselves to that
feeling of inner peace that is inherent in every single one of us. The peace that
is Divine in its nature. The peace that does not depend on worldly things to be
a certain way before we can feel It.

Remember, circumstances
are completely neutral. They have nothing invested in what we think of them or
how we feel about them. They just ARE. How we experience them is completely up
to us as individuals. Our experience of ANY circumstance is dictated by who we
are choosing to be—and on how we are choosing to see—in the midst of it.

For this
week, at the very least… and preferably for the rest of my life:

I Choose… Unconditional Acceptance

For
now, and indefinitely, I am choosing to be a person who knows exactly how to be
at peace in the midst of any circumstance, and I find my way to that feeling of
peace by deliberately cultivating unconditional acceptance of what-is.
I ask the question, “If I knew that I chose this on purpose—for my own benefit,
as a spiritual being having a spiritual
experience—what would I choose to do and who would I choose to be as I take
my steps through it?” And that is how I walk my Path as it winds its way
in, through, and around my circumstances. I accept it all.

What about you? What’s going on in YOUR life that would be easier for you if
you felt empowered IN it rather than a victim OF it?

We always get to choose. Always. No exceptions. [And
yes, I am aware of what happened in Orlando last night. And no, that does not
qualify as an exception. If anything, that kind of thing is an amazing, powerful
motivator to deliberately choose acceptance and peace. Why? Because blame, anger,
judgment, revenge, fear, punishment, hatred, etc. is NEVER going to produce a solution
to the problem (the “problem” being the mass consciousness—the attitudes, habits
of perception, and beliefs—of our society, itself) that allows things like that
to happen in the first place. Only a choice for peace and love has that
capability.]

This week
I’ve really taken two of the ideas from last week’s letter and done my best to
remember to APPLY them in this experience.

The first: “I
did not try to control ANY aspect of that experience, except for the choices I
was making in each and every moment.”

As with any
“tool for transformation,” the stronger my intention to make it a “default
setting” in my patterns of behavior 1) the more likely I am to remember to do
it and 2) the more numerous and intense are the opportunities to practice. Because,
as you’ve all heard me say before, it’s not possible to create a new habit if
we never have to choose it deliberately. And, for myself, the strength and the
level of sincerity of an intention such as this is always apparent to me in the
number and the intensity of the opportunities to practice it that I recognize
in my experience.

Please note:
I did not say “opportunities to practice that I RECEIVE.” I said “opportunities
that I RECOGNIZE” (as opportunities). It’s a Divine Truth that we are
continually, in every moment of every day, receiving opportunities to make our
choices deliberately. For myself, when I set an intention to really change
something within myself, it’s as if I have decided to “turn my awareness dial”
just a bit for the purpose of being able to see the choices that are always
available to me but that my previous habits of perception and behavior have not
allowed me to recognize. This makes those opportunities “light up” for me AS
opportunities, and from there I can choose more consciously than I do when I’m
operating out of habit.

The second
idea that I’ve been getting into is regarding the “pause,” itself: “I stood in
that “pause,” in the “turning of the page” moment, which contains no content,
and I paid attention to the choices that my habits of thinking would try
to make. In that pause, I discovered that I could leave what was past, in the
past. I could write a different story [if I chose to].”

Last January I sent out an article titled, “I
Choose My Desired Content,” and it was about the “Book of My Life” idea (if
you’ve joined this list since then and you’d like to read it, you can find it
in the archives), and that’s where I’ve been going with the above idea about a
“turning of the page” moment, which contains no content. In this
metaphor, I’m taking the “days” out of the idea and making it about the pause,
instead. As I do so, I know that I can take as long as I choose to turn that
page, and in that pause I get to decide who I want to be, as the author of my own
story, when that page has been turned all the way over and waits in readiness
for the next bit of content to be entered.

In that “My Desired Content” article I said this:
“I get to choose what is written on this page. …And whatever
it says will be the truth of who I BE'd [as I lived the life that became that
page’s content], because the choices that I make are always—NO EXCEPTIONS—an infallibly
accurate representation of WHO I AM BEING in the moment that I make them.”

In other
words, who I am being as I make my choices in each and every moment—in the
midst of each and every circumstance—is what creates the story of my life as
I’m living it.

In this
“pause” that I am currently giving to myself, as I am just breathing in between
the moments of recognition that I’m behaving by default, rather than by design,
there is an amazing freedom to witness how I’m choosing to live each moment without
judging or criticizing, but WITH the ability to see my behavior for what it is
and to change it if I decide to.

This
last week has been one of observing myself and my choices for the purpose of
seeing where my habits of behavior are not behaviors that contribute to the
quality of the person that I know I am capable of being. Simple. And yet,
difficult at the same time, I must admit.

And well
worth the effort.

I Choose… the Pause (Part Two)

This
week as I stand in the Observer position, witnessing my own attitudes, choices,
and behaviors, I recognize in all of it – in each and every moment and
experience – the opportunity to stand more firmly in the NEW “default” position
that I’ve set for myself. Each time I choose FOR the new pattern, I help it to
become the default program that I WANT to live my life from, and the story in
the Book of My Life reflects the quality of my new choices.

I am grateful for every single opportunity to practice that I am able to
recognize, because I know that it’s not anything that’s happening TO me, but it
is something wonderful that is happening FOR me, for the purpose of showing me
where a new and different choice can be made on my own behalf. In this “turning
of the page” moment, I breathe, and I consciously decide who the author of the
next page in the Book of My Life is going to be.

What about YOU? Do you find anything helpful in
this? I hope so. I’d love to hear about it.

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